| 08 April 2010
The Alabama football team was back in action on the practice field on Wednesday. The Tide went in full pads again, the second straight full pads practice after Friday's scrimmage and the weekend off.
Here's what you need to know:
The injury situation remains the same:
William Vlachos (foot) and Nico Johnson (knee) are in black jerseys and riding exercise bikes. Vlachos will be out for the rest of the spring, and Johnson is likely to miss at least the remainder of this week.
Tana Patrick suffered a concussion in Friday's scrimmage and is still in black. The staff is hopeful that he'll be cleared as soon as this coming Friday.
Milton Talbert has worked in black during every practice this spring, and Wednesday was no different. He is working during individual drills, but is being held out of all contact. No word has been given on exactly what his injury is.
Darrington Sentimore was back at practice today after missing Monday's workout. He had trouble getting back to Tuscaloosa after going home to Louisiana for the Easter weekend.
Coach Saban indicated in his press conference following the practice that there should be an announcement coming relatively soon on the eligibility of Robby Green. We'll let you know what the outcome of that process is once the announcement has been made.
After a bunch of experimenting on Monday, things seemed to be back to normal with the personnel groupings. As of right now, this is what we're seeing in individual groupings:
QB - Greg McElroy, AJ McCarron
RB - Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson
WR X - Julio Jones, Earl Alexander
WR Z - Marquis Maze, Darius Hanks
TE H - Preston Dial, Brad Smelley
TE Y - Michael Williams, Chris Underwood
LT - James Carpenter, Tyler Love
LG - Chance Warmack, Anthony Steen
C - David Ross, Brian Motley (really Vlachos is #1, but he's not practicing)
RG - Barrett Jones, John Michael Boswell
RT - D.J. Fluker, Alfred McCullough
LDE - Marcell Dareus, Darrington Sentimore/Undra Billingsley
NG - Josh Chapman, Kerry Murphy
RDE - Luther Davis, Damion Square
JLB - Courtney Upshaw, Ed Stinson/Alex Watkins
MLB - Dont'a Hightower, Chris Jordan
WLB - Nico Johnson, Tana Patrick (with both of those out on Wed -Jalston Fowler)
SLB - Jerrell Harris, Chavis Williams
LCB - Dre Kirkpatrick, Phelon Jones
FS - Mark Barron, Rod Woodson/Kendall Kelly
SS - Robby Green, Robert Lester
RCB - B.J. Scott, DeMarcus Milliner/John Fulton
We did see a little bit of walk-on Will Lowery working with the free safeties, even getting a look with the first unit when Mark Barron shifted to the money in the dime package.
We also saw a new look for the rabbit rusher package with Marcell Dareus sliding inside to the nose, with Dont'a Hightower and Damion Square on the ends, with Courney Upshaw, Jerrell Harris, and Chris Jordan at the linebackers.
Kendall Kelly was working wuth the safeties again, which meant that Brandon Gibson was with the wide receivers. This really looks like an either/or situation right now with these two guys. And it really looks like neither guy is actually going to make a permanent move there.
Having said that, when you start seeing walk-ons with the first unit, you have to really be concerned about depth at a position. Lowery, for the record, is a 5-9, 188 lb. Junior from Homewood. There have certainly been noteable walk-ons make big contributions in the past, but you would have to think that the staff would prefer to go with someone a little bigger and more athletic once September rolls around.
Bama will practice again on Friday, with another scrimmage set for Saturday. I expect that the team will go in shells on Friday, as that is typically how they go in the practice before a scrimmage. We'll have our normal report.
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